


We Roar Like Giants

by Adel Mortescryche (Mortescryche)



Series: KHR Rare Pair Week 2018 [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Absent Characters, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Anthropomorphic, Attempt at Humor, BAMF Sawada Tsunayoshi, Dragons, Feel sorry for the shark, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Shapeshifting, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Squalo is So Done, Trope Subversion/Inversion, Xanxus is stuck in a castle tower okay, and Squalo's a knight, and Tsuna's the cowardly dragon protecting him, no bestiality, that's it that's the story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 06:04:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14948966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortescryche/pseuds/Adel%20Mortescryche
Summary: Whatever he’d been expecting, the dragon hadn’t been it.“Hieeeee!” it wailed, and actually tried to hide behind the tower. Squalo could have told it that wasn’t going to work, it was just too damned big, but he was too busy gaping with his sword arm sagging in place.“Is that you, shark-trash?!” the Prince roared from the window right below the turret of the tallest tower in the castle. “Fucking finally! Bring that magic sword of yours so I can cut through the magic on this First-damned door already!”All Squalo wants to do is rescue his Boss from the tower Xanxus is stuck in. But he didn't count on the dragon 'guarding' it.





	We Roar Like Giants

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the tags and warnings.

Whatever he’d been expecting, the dragon _hadn’t_ been it.

“Hieeeee!” it wailed, and actually tried to hide _behind_ the tower. Squalo could have told it that wasn’t going to work, it was just too damned big, but he was too busy gaping with his sword arm sagging in place.

“Is that you, shark-trash?!” the Prince roared from the window right below the turret of the tallest tower in the castle. “Fucking finally! Bring that magic sword of yours so I can cut through the magic on this First-damned door already!”

Squalo wondered if it wasn’t too late to just ride the fuck back to the Varia Compound. It might have been years since Iemitsu and the King had had the Boss spirited away to some First-forsaken place in the open countryside, and they might really need their leader back already, but he was beginning to remember _why_ the last few years had been so peaceful compared to the days when Xanxus had been around to raise hell on a daily basis.

*

It went something like this. The youngest Prince had been shoved at his father by a whore from the bordello district who claimed that the boy was his son. Much to the outrage of the knights that had been with him at the time, but King Timoteo had been more focused on the orange-red Flames that danced in the boy’s hand. The rest had been, as they say, history.

Messy history, once each of the older princes passed away except for the third and last before the fourth and youngest prince. Squalo had never been able to draw a straight answer out of anyone for _why,_ exactly, the King decided to exile the youngest prince when the Kingdom had actual need for their royal blood. The King wasn’t exactly getting any _younger,_ for fuck’s sake. But away he’d been sent, leaving Squalo to manage the Order of Knights that Prince Xanxus had commanded for too many seasons to count, to the point that he’d decided to quest for the prince’s location out of sheer self-preservative instincts.

It helped that the King and his aide stopped paying as much attention to his personal missions after five full years had passed by.  Keeping an eye on Levi in that time had been hell on earth, and Squalo couldn’t wait to shove his painfully adulatory fellow knight back at the Boss and be done with it. It took him a while to actually track the Boss down, but when he did, he’d been expecting some terrifying monster barring the way.

The dragon he’d been met with was hardly a monster.

*

Sure, the dragon that had been charged with guarding the castle and tower that his prince had been locked away in was large, and mighty. Its head was crowned with large golden spikes, it had large horns that could throw an entire legion of men if it shook its head. The fact that it could easily reach Xanxus’ window when it sat on its oddly leonine haunches told Squalo just how big it was, and the golden spines and spikes covering its orange hide warned him that it wouldn’t be a pushover if Squalo ever had to truly go up against it. It’s odd, feathered wings spoke of great speed, and the spines that edged them spoke of danger, but somehow, Squalo just couldn’t find it in himself to be frightened or even wary of the beast.

“I’m sorry, but I was asked to not let anyone in,” the dragon told him, as earnest as you please, and Squalo’s not sure how he’s supposed to respond to that. Especially with the Boss yelling for him to climb his way up the tower if he had to.

“Did they ask you to stop people from rescuing the Prince?” Squalo found himself asking because, fuck him, the dragon was actually _polite_. It was worth a try, if nothing else.

“Rescuing?” The dragon responded, confused. “Why would he need rescuing when he’s here so I can keep him safe?”

“Just let me leave you overgrown lizard-trash! Like hell I need protecting!” Yelled the Boss from on high, and Squalo was hard pressed not to laugh. Even if the laughter would have been incredulous because, what the hell, even if he’d never managed to get a straight answer out of the King or Sawada, he was pretty sure the old man hadn’t sent Xanxus away so that he could be _protected_.

“Giotto asked me to protect this castle and everything in it, so that’s what I’m going to do,” the dragon said, a touch sullen, and Squalo _has_ to give in to the urge to choke over that, because First’s sweet breath the dragon _had actually known the First_.

“Well, if you can’t let me into the tower, would you mind if I stayed a night in the castle?” Squalo offered cautiously, trying his best to ignore the Boss, who was screaming a blue streak and hurling books from the window. And also ignore the way the dragon was patiently picking them up and offering them back, the leather bound volumes looking comically small held between the dragon’s golden claws. It had five clawed fingers, one of which was actually prehensile, and Squalo really didn’t know how he was supposed to react to this. An _intelligent_ monster, one that knew the First, and was polite, besides.

The dragon somehow managed to look doleful, staring at him with its warm brown eyes.

“No, sorry Knight Shark, no one is to be let through the main entryway of the castle. Those were my orders. You’re free to make camp in the courtyard, though,” it offered peaceably, and Squalo nodded, willing to take it at its word.

He’d slain dragons before, it wouldn’t be anything new. But the undertaking was always dangerous, so why test himself again a peaceful dragon that might one day stand at the side of his Boss? It seemed to be more patient than most of the Varia, anyway, and _Squalo_ blew his top over the Boss’ idiosyncrasies – while the dragon was listening to all the screaming with a mild expression. Fuck, it had been stuck with Xanxus for five years all on its own, and _it hadn’t already killed him._ It was already more patient than Squalo had ever been, and Squalo had willingly let himself entire into Xanxus’ Knightly Order because he knew that the youngest prince was a better man to follow than the rest of the royal family.

“It’s Squalo, of House Superbi,” Squalo offered, later in the day, when the sky had begun to dim, and the dragon had drawn away from the tower after a low toned conversation with the Boss. Xanxus had continued to yell, but the dragon’s voice had softened to a low throb that Squalo hadn’t been able to make out, for all that he could feel the vocalization in his bones.

Curled up in a circle, wings folded and furry tail curving around to meet its snout, the dragon peered at him curiously, before its mouth opened just enough for Squalo to catch a glimpse of the sharp teeth within. The sight would have been alarming if it weren’t obvious from the soft sound tumbling from its chest that this was the closest it could get to _smiling._

“I have been called Tsuna, for a time,” it said. “Giotto insisted on giving me a name, when he holidayed in my homeland. It was comforting to have a name to respond to, when he had shared his own with me, so I was pleased to claim it for my own when he lay down for his final sleep. In memory of a dear friend.”

The words are hair raising, because they explain so much about the First and the legends that said he disappeared for some distant land when he’d tired of all the wars he’d had to wage to protect the Vongola Kingdom. The kingdom had been large enough to be named an empire, in truth, even in those early days, but it wasn’t until the Second took over that the Vongola started being referred to with all the pomp of an Empire in the history books.

 “Tsuna, then,” Squalo said, mouth dry, and tried not to stare at how smoke was curling up from its, his, nostrils. A firebreather, was he?

Tsuna huffed a cloud of warm breath Squalo’s way, and then dropped his head back down to the ground, apparently done speaking for the night.

Squalo slowly trudged back to where he’d tied his horse to a tree, already fed and watered, and wondered if he should make an attempt at removing at least some of the armor he was decked in, from head to toe. A darted glance back at dragon made him sigh, resigned to staying at least somewhat armored, until he could figure out whether or not he needed to be worried for his life at night.

Something told him he wouldn’t have to be, though.

*

By the time Squalo woke, the sun was already uncomfortably high in the sky, and he had a dragon crouching low beside him, apparently… staring at his hair?

“VOOOOOI, paint a picture, it’ll last longer!” he snapped on reflex, then battled the urge to apologize profusely because Tsuna was a _great big fucking dragon that could snap him in two if it took offence._

The dragon didn’t seem to take any offence at all, though. It actually reared back, its reptilian features somehow managing to convey awkwardness, and mumbled an apology. Actually mumbled, the words a subtonal boom that Squalo felt on his skin and in the ground more than he actually heard them in his ears.

“It’s just, it’s so very pretty. And long. It almost looks like spun silver, or like white opals in a molten stream.” The dragon said, for all the world sounding _bashful._

Squalo, who’d spent most of his life hearing curses heaped on his head for the color of his hair, and people telling him it was ominous to have a knight with hair the same shade as bones bleached in sunlight, is horrified to feel the tips of his ears _burn_ at the compliments.

“It’s just _hair,”_ he muttered, not sure how to react. The dragon hummed softly, and reached out with a careful arm, _hand,_ and Squalo held stock still, feeling one of the dragon’s sharp golden claws card gently through his hair.

“Exactly like silver.” It said, sounding satisfied, and Squalo spent a very long moment wondering if this was how he would die, fool enough to let a riches-mad dragon close enough to get at the back of his head and neck. Just because of a few stray compliments about the color of his hair.

It pulled back to a polite distance immediately after it was done surveying the… texture? Of Squalo’s hair. Or, at least, he _assumed_ it had been checking the texture of his hair, though how it could do anything of the sort with its claws, Squalo couldn’t say. Maybe it just wanted a better angle to see what Squalo’s hair looked like in the sunlight.

“Will you allow me to step into the castle today?” he found himself asking, desperately needing to change the subject away from his _hair._

The dragon stared down at him with unnervingly sharp eyes. For all that it acted more like a coward, clearly it hadn’t lived all the years since the First’s passing without any intelligence at all. Squalo could read the age in its eyes, in spite of its polity and the way it had squeaked and backed away when Squalo had found his way to the castle. This dragon was _sentient,_ in a way that the ones that Squalo and the rest of the Varia had been charged with hunting down as their duty to the Vongola hadn’t been.

“No. Not today,” it said finally, its eyes glinting an odd shade of amber-gold in the sunlight. “Giotto asked me to protect this castle, and his family. And you just got here. I have no reason to believe that you aren’t dangerous to the prince I watch over.”

Squalo could hear the Boss screaming something about ‘not needing to be watched over’, and maybe something about Squalo being trash and therefore not dangerous, but he was too busy staring up at the dragon with his heart in his throat to immediately react to the words. Because this dragon seemed about as resolute about his duty as _Squalo_ was, and that was a rare thing indeed.

“I’m not leaving at any rate, VOI, so you’d get to judge whether or not I’m dangerous to the prince in time,” he threw back, chin tipped up, almost like a gauntlet on the grassy ground before him. The dragon seemed to read the words as such, at any rate, and ducked his head agreeably enough, his gaze steady and serious.

The atmosphere was ruined when what looked like a fucking chest of drawers managed to slam into the back of the dragon’s head making him comically flop forward with a yelp. The bloody thing even shattered against Tsuna’s horns, and Squalo choked, trying not to _laugh_ , because the sight was pretty hilarious when you weren’t the one with something breaking against your skull.

“Xanxus, your _clothes.”_ Tsuna wailed, eyes straining upwards to try and focus on the shirts and breeches hanging on one of the spines crowning his head. Not to mention the clothes and large bits of shattered wood covered the rest of the spines and his horns.

“Fucking let shark-trash into this shitty castle!” Xanxus yelled back, voice plenty loud even as it was softened by the distance between him and the ground.

“But your dresser! I’ll have to go and find you another one again, oh, Reborn _said_ there would be days like this, why didn’t I ever believe him-”

Squalo couldn’t help himself. He doubled over and gave in to the laughter.

*

“How about _today,”_ Squalo found himself asking after an entire week had passed by.

Tsuna, in the process of crunching his way through the ribcage of a truly enormous cow he’d brought in from somewhere in the countryside surrounding the castle, lifted his head to shoot Squalo a thoroughly unimpressed look. Squalo stared back, unrepentant. Yes, he’d tried sneaking into the castle while Tsuna had been away, but could anyone blame him? It had been such a good opportunity to be done with the farce that was playing out between them.

Not so, according to Tsuna, who flew back clutching the cow in his hands and looking _disappointed_ when he found Squalo trying to hack through the enchantments on the heavy oak doors hanging in the entrance with his sword. The magic one, not the one tied to his left arm with the newer age magicks that were on the rise in the capital city.

It wasn’t like he’d managed to get through, anyway, so who cared?

Tsuna, apparently, who’d been ignoring him in favor of the cow for the past few hours.

 Squalo sighed, and wondered if he shouldn’t go for his rations a little earlier than usual. His evenings were mostly spent conversing with the dragon, trying to convince him to let Squalo into the castle, while his mornings went by convincing Tsuna to let him stay another day. He supposed he was lucky that he hadn’t been chased away with _fire,_ when the dragon had returned, but the disappointment stung a whole lot more than burns would have in its place.

Even the prince was silent above, clearly bored of yelling from his window.

Tsuna had conversed with Xanxus when he’d returned, after staring at Squalo until the swordsman stepped away from the door. Squalo hadn’t been able to hear what had been said, but Tsuna’s voice had been that low, subtonal boom again, and Squalo had forced himself to settle down by his horse, at a loss for anything else to do. Xanxus had gone silent ever since Tsuna had stepped away. The change might have made Squalo suspicious, but the last week had convinced him that Tsuna was just as dedicated to Xanxus’ safety as Squalo was, and for roughly the same reason. They loyalty may not have been held by the same person, but their duty to their charges rang true, in spite of Squalo being a man and Tsuna being a part reptilian, part leonine beast.

 “Would you like me to roast some of that meat for you?” he said, at a lack of something to say when the dragon was apparently throwing a tantrum over Squalo’s attitude.

It earned him a particularly suspicious look, and this one actually made Tsuna lift his head up from the carcass of the cow, his entire snout red with blood and meat. When he curled up a lip, Squalo had to forcefully stand his ground, no matter how much he’d like to go for his sword to defend himself. For all that Tsuna was a _polite,_ mildly inept dragon, those teeth of his were still like serrated daggers visible in his maw.

“Why would I want to _roast_ it?” Tsuna asked, disgusted. Squalo rolled his eyes; there went the image of the monster and the teeth.

“Didn’t the First ever suggest cooking what you eat? Giotto,” he added, when the title earned him a confused look from the dragon.

“What? No. Giotto and I shared meal times, but he never had anything against me eating as I do. Though he _was_ nice enough to find me the best animals.”

The dragon actually sounded _wistful._ Squalo made a face, trying not to recollect just how many generations it had been since the First had apparently passed on.

“I’d been one of the people in charge of ensuring that the prince gets good food, the least I can do is offer his dragon the same?” Squalo was probably laying it on a bit too thickly, but even that didn’t seem to help, Tsuna looking just as unimpressed as he’d been earlier.

The expression nearly has Squalo _twitching,_ because of all the things he’d expected, it hadn’t been that the dragon would look exactly like his fussy Boss in the mood to be stubborn about a meal. The expression is probably what decides it for him, because he shoves himself up and strides right over to where Tsuna is protectively hunched over his gory meal.

“The next time you find a cow, or a goat, or _anything,_ you will bring it to me and I will make you a meal fit for that shitty Prince and his fussy ways!” he snapped. Tsuna reared back, his blood spattered jaw quivering comically.

“Will you listen if I refuse?” the dragon mumbled, about as much as a dragon _could_ mumble, his words rumbling through the ground beneath his feet. Squalo scowled, and folded his arms, staring the dragon down until he shied away awkwardly, and agreed.

 

“VOI he’s absolutely ridiculous and dumb, how’d you live with the bloody thing all these years, boss?” Squalo found himself grumbling, later, on a hot day when the dragon had decided to go bathe himself in the lake nearby.

Squalo had rid himself off his armor and had managed to climb all the way till Xanxus’ window only to find that the window was magically bound to prevent entry as well. And they weren’t magicks that could be cut through by Squalo’s sword, unlike the doors leading to Xanxus’ room from inside the castle. It only made sense that they’d ward the window stronger when it was _Xanxus_ being imprisoned. He’d been using his Flame magicks to propel himelf through the air for _years,_ after all. It only made sense that he would be able to cushion himself against a large fall as well, say, from the window of a tower.

So there he found himself, clinging to the ledge of a window he couldn’t even climb through, casually chatting with his Boss who’d been missing for _years,_ having spent the entire time locked away in a tower with no one but a cowardly dragon that had sometime known the First for company.

Xanxus grunted, and Squalo found that tilting his head out of the way of the book that went flying at his face was still as easy as it had been, back when the reflex had been conditioned for daily use.

“I hate him. He’s a brat and always insisted on coming and bleating at me every damn day, about how much I looked like _Ricardo,_ and asking what the Kingdom was like now, and how Giotto could apparently do no wrong, and how they were such great _friends,”_ Xanxus all but sneered the word out, and Squalo had to swallow down his laughter. It only made sense that the Boss had had more time to get more exasperated over facts in Tsuna’s personality that had managed to drive _Squalo_ up the castle walls in just a week. “I would have found some way to get back at the dratted dragon if he weren’t so serious about _protecting_ me and the castle. Even from the Ninth’s men.”

The words had Squalo’s metaphoric hackles rising immediately.

 “The Ninth’s men were here? Even _after_ they imprisoned you? Who were they?” Even as he asked, Squalo knew he didn’t need a direct answer. The Ninth King always employed Iemitsu’s Order of Knights to handle questioning or the removal of a threat to the State that the King didn’t want assigned to the Varia.

Xanxus growled some more, then reached out to pointed to shove Squalo’s hands off of the ledge they were gripping. Squalo went down with a shout, and only just managed to catch himself on some masonry that was jutting out beneath the window.

Tsuna returned to find him clinging to the tower and hurling obscenities at Xanxus’ head, while the boss laughed like the asshole he was from on high.

“I’m… not sure if I should have been removing you from the tower to protect Xanxus from you or you to protect you from the Prince.” He said, later, utterly bemused, head propped on his forearms and watching while Squalo muttered foully under his breath, using his Rain Flames to cool his bruised flesh. They didn’t work anywhere near as well as an icepack or, better yet, Sun Flames would have, but something was better than nothing.

“The Prince,” Squalo snarled, “is an asshole who keeps getting on my nerves, VOI! You’d think he’d be happy to see me after all these years, but he throws books at my head and throws me off of towers and laughs!”

“But you’re loyal anyway, aren’t you. You’ve _been_ loyal, all these years.”

Squalo stilled, and slowly looked up into that great reptilian face. Tsuna stared back at him, his eyes gleaming visibly orange in his head.

 _Sky Flames,_ Squalo realized, mouth going dry. He’d been taught the lore when he had been in training to become a member of the Varia, same as the others, and he knew there were some beasts that possessed magicks and Flames in nature, but he’d never heard of _dragons_ that could use Flames till date. It _did_ explain why Tsuna seemed so different from the others dragons that Squalo had slain till date.

The dragon nodded, eyes going back to the more familiar brown, and lifted himself back up on his feet.

“I’ll let you enter the castle, so long as you vow not to spirit your Prince away from here. I’ve been given a duty, and I mean to fulfil it.” Tsuna said, voice steady, and slowly walked his way over to the castle.

The effect might have been impressive if Squalo didn’t have to watch the dragon cowering under Xanxus’ yells right after. So, instead, it first made him cough, and then made him _laugh,_ forgetting all about his bruises and the scrapes on his hands. Well, the flesh hand at any rate, the other one just had scratches.

The wounded look his laughter earned him from the dragon was just icing on the cake.

*

“Some warning,” Squalo ground out later that evening, “would have been _appreciated.”_

“Warning of what?” the short, fluffy brown haired ‘man’ walking in front of him asked, easily levitating a ball of orange Flame over his hand. It somehow gave off enough light to make out where they were headed, at any rate.

Squalo had cracked a dry joke about not being able to breathe fire in his human form, and Tsuna had turned great big orange eyes on him and told him, quite seriously, that Sky Flames couldn’t light a candle wick. As if he’d tried before.

The dragon walking in front of him simply showed Squalo the way to a fully furnished room, gave him something of a pleasant nod, and turned around and walked back out. And Squalo, still reeling under the impact of _that_ revelation, simply began removing the layers he’d chosen to armor himself with before setting foot in the castle. It _did_ happen to have at least one magic tower, after all, Squalo believed having magic armor in between his fleshy bits and whatever tricks the castle might have to offer was only for the best.

He’d been too distracted by the dragon to truly pay attention to his surroundings, though. When Tsuna had mentioned that he’d lead Squalo to a room that he could use for the night, the knight had been confused. He’d assumed the dragon would lead him from the other side of the windows, and Squalo had been secretly plotting to find some way to visit the Prince in the night, when the dragon wouldn’t be around to watch him – there was only so much you could see whilst peeking through the windows.

And then the dragon had glowed orange all over and _shrunk._ And changed shape. Until a man clad in dragon hide had stood before Squalo, his face alarmingly similar to the portraits of the First that hung in the King’s Castle back home. The only difference Squalo had been able to see was the height, and the hair color. Maybe some ethnic dissimilarities in the shape of the eyes – the First _had_ found Tsuna in some far away land, as the legends went. But as he lived and breathed, the dragon could not only shape shift, but it could turn into a tiny copy of the First!

Squalo somehow managed to convince himself to go to sleep, once he’d removed his armor and disrobed for bed, but he woke just as perplexed as he’d been the night before.

 

“VOOOI, you mean to say you _knew?”_ he demanded incredulously in the morning, having left his armor behind and gone climbing up the tower in padded leather and linen again.

“Of course I knew,” Xanxus threw back, harsh. “I’ve been stuck here for nearing on eight years now. The dragon had to get bored of sitting through bad weather at _some_ point.”

Squalo muttered another curse, and craned a look over his shoulder. Tsuna was back to looking like a dragon, sitting on his haunches and watching Squalo attentively, like the good little guard dog he was meant to be. Squalo had stepped out of his room to find the dragon sitting right outside his door, blinking sleepily up at him, clearly having spent the night waiting to see if he would break his vows. It was probably for the best that Squalo had simply spent the night in bed, trying to get over his disbelief.

“Did you ever ask him why he looks so much like the First?” Squalo found himself asking, eyes not leaving the dragon, who slowly sank further only the ground, still watching him and the Boss.

Xanxus snorted, and folded his arms on the ledge, leaning out a little so he could comfortably stare out the window at the dragon too.

“No. The brat wouldn’t have given me any answers, anyway. For all that he keeps blabbering through the day, and can’t seem to fucking _stop_ the blabber when it comes to the First, he never really says shit about himself.”

Squalo hid a smirk, and instead peered back at the Boss.

“You do realize that the Queen would have washed you mouth out with soap by now.”

Xanxus rolled his eyes, brows twitching only slightly in pain. Good. That meant that the old geezer had been nice enough to at least _tell_ the Boss when his grandmother the Queen had passed.

“Well. What she can’t hear won’t hurt her,” Xanxus murmured, gruff.

“Agreed, Boss,” Squalo replied, and let the topic of the Ottava drop.

*

It became common enough practice, after that, for Squalo to spend part of the day chatting with a dragon that looked like it was going to jump out of its skin whenever Squalo spoke directly with him and another part of the day holding onto the ledge and chatting with the Boss because he could apparently _get away with it now._ And then leave Xanxus to yell at Tsuna while Tsuna ratcheted between being polite and cowering whenever Xanxus tried to pelt him with books, all of which the dragon timidly lifted back up to the window so Xanxus could grumble and take them back. And finally, Tsuna would shift back into his human form and quietly lead Squalo up to his room through the otherwise dark and silent castle, fully furnished though it was.

“Are you going to be ferrying me back and forth to bed every night?” Squalo had to ask, after more than a week went by with Tsuna seriously leading him to his room every night, and then waiting outside to make sure he didn’t find his way around the castle till Xanxus’ tower.

Tsuna glanced over his shoulder back at Squalo, blinked, and to Squalo’s mounting surprise, actually flushed in a stripe over his nose, the red suffusing his face reaching all the way till his ears.

“That- I- no! No, I don’t mean to ferry you to bed every night,” the dragon stammered, and Squalo blinked slowly.

It was a good thing that this hadn’t happened in the earlier days of their acquaintance, because there was _nothing_ that could have stopped the nasty smile that broke out over Squalo’s face in response.

“Embarrassed about that, are you,” he cooed, and the poor dragon simply stammered some more, the Flames in the ball hanging above his hand flaring wildly a split second before stabilizing.

“W-well, it’s not like I have a choice, do I. You’re here to steal the Prince away from my protection!” He snapped hotly, and Squalo quickly lifted both hands to defend himself, smile not moving an inch from his face. Tsuna had been amusing enough, in the time he’d been stuck trying to figure out how to break the Boss free from the Tower, but this had to take the cake.

“But I’ve been keeping my vow well enough, haven’t I. Some trust would be nice,” Squalo drawled, watching with sharp eyes as Tsuna’s shuffled in place awkwardly.

Dressed as he was in human garb, whether the illusion of it or otherwise, and with his diminutive size - not to mention the big brown eyes and fluffy hair - it was _easy_ to forget the horns, the golden spines and the smoke that snaked out of Tsuna’s dragon form. Oh, Squalo could never quite forget that the other man was a dragon, not with the vicious claws that still tipped his fingers and the utterly alien expressions that sometimes crossed his face, as if he were looking down on ants from a very far distance above. But it was easier to poke fun at him now.

Not that the larger form actually stopped Squalo from speaking his mind these days, not when he had grown used to the mind behind the body, but somehow, he had less fears of being skewered on the dragon’s claws when he looked like a man.

Tsuna seemed to be contemplating maiming Squalo very seriously, on his side of things - even in the low light, Squalo could tell that his pupils had elongated back into more reptilian slits. For whatever ridiculous reason, Squalo just felt his smile _broaden_.

Tsuna spun away with a huff, striding down the corridor with a scowl.

“You know, the longer I know you, the more you begin to remind me of a friend of mine back home,” he ground out irritably, and Squalo walked after him, brows rising curiously.

“Oh?” He quipped, shrugging lazily when Tsuna shot him a sharp look.

“He isn’t a dragon.” Tsuna said warily.

“And whether or not he’s a dragon would interest me… Why, exactly?” Squalo countered, mild.

Tsuna frowned, and glanced away again.

“Giotto did. So did Xanxus, for that matter. For some reason, humans seem to assume that I only associate with other dragons, since I happen to be one myself.”

Squalo gave a sharp laugh at that. Obviously the Boss would’ve thought that. For all that he kept calling Tsuna a ‘brat’, the Boss always respected power. He wouldn’t be able to understand why anyone as powerful as a dragon wouldn’t want to be in similarly powered company - meaning other dragons.

Squalo, though? Power was power, to him, no matter the source. He’d be just as wary of the dragon’s friends even if they weren’t dragons. Possibly more so, if they’d learnt to stay deadly while in the company of a dragon. The Boss would be the same, once he had the time to think it through.

“…he’s an Okuri-Ōkami,” Tsuna murmured, much later, when he’d finally led Squalo all the way till his room. Squalo paused in the process of lighting the candles on the flat surfaces within.

“A wolf spirit?” Squalo asked curiously, noting the language for later. It was good to be able to place the dragon’s land geographically, now. He had to wonder what kind of blood had gone into creating Tsuna, though. There was no way he was pure dragon. Not with his leonine haunches and the prehensile hands he had even in his dragon form.

Tsuna lowered his head in the slightest nod, eyes gleaming, apparently booting he fact that Squalo _recognized_ the language well enough to know what his friend was. Squalo felt his lips split in a sharp grin, and it was met by a soft grin on the dragon’s face before he pulled the door shut he rest of the way through.

Squalo wasn’t certain what he was supposed to do with the warmth burning in his gut, after that. The dragon was proving to be _troublesome_ , much like his Boss had proclaimed, early on. He forced himself to turn in for the night, though, in spite of the restlessness running through his veins.

The next morning found him blinking at an empty corridor. For the first time in weeks, Tsuna had chosen not to spend the night keeping an eye on Squalo’s door.

“Then sneak out and break my door down already,” Xanxus snarled in the morning. Squalo winced, and reared as far back as he could, not very comfortable being in grabbing distance of his Boss. That the Boss could reach out while Squalo couldn’t get past the ledge just made the situation more dangerous for him.

“VOI, it’s not like I didn’t know he wouldn’t be there last night,” Squalo snapped back. “And I don’t exactly want to be on the wrong end of a broken vow with a Sky Flame spewing _dragon_ ”

“Did you or did you not come here to break me out of this fucking Tower?!” Xanxus roared in response, and Squalo’s fingers clenched tight against the ledge, feeling his heart rate spike in his chest.

“I did. I _did_ , Boss, I tracked you for years once I managed to win the Ninth and Iemitsu’s trust - why the fuck wouldn’t I want to break you out, now that I’m here?” Squalo spat, his voice rough in his throat.

Xanxus met him with eyes that glittered harshly, every ounce of his antipathy for the Ninth’s men and the loneliness of the years he’d been locked away boring through Squalo in a single glance. The suspicion that filled his Boss’ eyes nearly made Squalo gag.

He didn’t even try to continue the conversation. Squalo could rage and scream, but sometimes, silence spoke just as much as words and this was one of the rare instances in which he didn’t want to yell himself hoarse in the face of his Boss’ cynicism.

“Is everything okay?” Tsuna asked cautiously, when Squalo got his feet back down on the ground. “You didn’t spend as long talking today.”

“My Boss is a miserable fucking bastard,” Squalo grumbled, dropping down beside the dragon, and staring up at the tower balefully. Xanxus simply slammed the shutters on them, making it obvious that he wanted no company from either of them.

Squalo sat in silence for his part, still seething at the thought of his loyalty being put to question. Tsuna lay just as quietly beside him on the grass, not needing to be told that Squalo wasn’t in any mood for conversation.

They remained beside each other for a long while, neither needing to speak. Until, finally, Tsuna lifted his head, shifting his shoulders and wings with a rustling sigh.

“Would you care to accompany me on my hunt?” he asked, careful. Squalo stared up at him, confused, until he remembered his offer to make the dragon cooked, seasoned meat earlier on in their acquaintance. He nodded immediately, and drew himself up and back to his feet, the beginning of a wild grin tugging at his lips.

“VOI I’ve never hunted _with_ a dragon before, let’s see what the experience is like!”

Tsuna made that hissing noise at him, the one that sounded like laughter, and his jaw parted just enough to look like a razor sharp grin.

*

It turned out that hunting from dragon back was relatively boring, outside of the flying. The _flying,_ Squalo enjoyed. The fact that he couldn’t actually hunt anything with his own two hands, not so much.

Tsuna just laughed at him some more, bringing the lowing cow with him up in his claws, the cow’s increasingly frantic sounds eventually stopping when it finally passed out. When they returned to the castle, Squalo neatly aimed his sword between its ribs and stabbed it right through the heart.

“That’s a whole lot neater than the way I do it,” Tsuna offered very seriously, peering down at Squalo while he worked. Squalo just rolled his eyes, still not completely able to believe he was discussing clean ways to take the life of your prey with a _dragon._

“It’s going to be a whole lot neater all around, you big lunk, since I’m going to peel the skin off first before I do anything with the meat.”

“But that seems like such a waste! Do you really have to cut it all up?”

“Yes, yes I do,” Squalo grunted, and donated some of his knifes to the cause of skinning and gutting the beast, liberally making use of Tsuna’s blade-sharp claws to slice through meat and bone when necessary.

Tsuna was horribly fascinated through the entire ordeal, making sad sounds whenever he felt Squalo was ‘wasting’ too much, but he _did_ wait patiently for the knight to get done. When Squalo was ready with his large cuts of meat, he paused, wondering abruptly whether or not he actually had enough spices to be able to make anything worthwhile when working with so much meat. Worst came to worst, even simply roasting the meat over the fire had to be better than eating so much raw beef. But Squalo had made an offer of a _good_ seasoned meal, damnit, and he planned to deliver.

“Are the kitchens operational at all, here?” he asked the dragon without much hope, honestly expecting that Tsuna wouldn’t even know what a kitchen _was._ Thankfully, this was one instance in which the dragon surprising him was welcome. In fact, not only was it welcome, but it gave him the bare inklings of a _plan._

“You lord Prince has a pantry and kitchen that connect to his rooms at the top of the tower – I’m sure we can find something worthwhile there. Timoteo’s men bring food for the Prince every month or so, and the men bringing the food in boasted that even a king wouldn’t find the provisions wanting as long as he knew how to prepare them.”

Squalo had to swallow the first inappropriate phrase that sprung to the front of his mind, at that, and the second too. And the third - before finally giving in to the snort of laughter that had built in him. Xanxus, knowing how to prepare food fit for a king? He _must_ have figured out how to manage at some point, but the thought of Xanxus bending his neck a bit and finally stooping to prepare the high class meals he always expected the Varia to have ready on his table was fucking _hilarious._

“L-lead the way,” he managed to get out, just grinning broadly when Tsuna shot him a suspicious look.

He followed Tsuna back to the castle, leaving the meat freely out in the open, knowing from experience that no birds or other animals dared to come near anything that had been designated the dragon’s prey, focusing instead on the more important information that Tsuna had unwittingly revealed.

The pantry and kitchen he was being led to connected in some way to Xanxus’ cage at the top of the tower. Meaning, all Squalo had to do was figure out how to get from the kitchen till Xanxus’ rooms, and he would have finally succeeded at getting to his Prince. Getting Xanxus away from the castle and Tsuna was a plan that would have to wait, sadly, but at least the first part appeared to be shaping up!

It helped that he actually found the spices that he wanted in the kitchen – the prospect of something new to eat turned out to be interesting enough that Tsuna was thoroughly distracted from Squalo taking note of the doorway that Tsuna had had to lead him through, one clawed hand around his wrist so he could get through the door.

One swipe with his sword at the hinges and the door should come down. Xanxus had seemed particularly convinced of that, before, and the Boss’d always had good intuition for Flames and magicks.

 

Roughly a half hour, give or take some more time, saw them finally digging into their meals. Tsuna had mourned so much good meat being _burned,_ of all things, but he’d subsided when Squalo snarled something uncomplimentary at him, still busy making sure he’d seasoned everything correctly. That, and the smell of the fresh, spiced meat roasting over the flames made Tsuna pause, sniffing curiously.

“This,” the dragon said, between large gulps of meat, “is a lot better than I thought it would be.”

Squalo, chewing on his own bite, snorted with laughter.

“The First never tried to force feed you cooked meat? Ever?”

“No,” Tsuna grumped. “When I was in my natural form, he never told me to change my habits, and when I shapeshifted to human, I never felt the urge to eat. Food tastes too strange to me, in that form.”

“I see,” Squalo said, not really seeing at all. The statement would have made a lot more sense to Lussuria, he supposed.

When they were done, and Tsuna had obligingly dug a deep hole in which to drop the offal so it didn’t smell, further out from the castle, Squalo stared up at him presently. Tsuna stared back, twitching in place.

“A good experiment?”

“Very good,” Tsuna agreed instantly.

“Would you like me to make you more?”

“Yes please!”

“VOI, wonderful! All you have to do is lead me to the Prince’s chambers.”

The whine that burst out of Tsuna’s reptilian throat was unexpected enough that Squalo choked back a laugh. When he looked back up, the dragon looked doleful enough that Squalo was tempted to swat him on the snout with his sword, just to remind Tsuna not to be quite so pathetic.

“Fine, don’t lead me to the Prince’s chambers. All that means is that I’ll only fucking cook when I’m fucking up to it. Clear?”

“Crystal.” Tsuna rushed to answer, his great big head bobbing up and down excitedly, barely visible in the dark. Squalo’s lips tilted in a smile, in spite of himself.

“Now, shouldn’t you be ferrying me to my rooms?”

“Right away, Sir Squalo,” the dragon said, rushing to shift into a smaller form, and Squalo _did_ laugh, this time.

Whatever he’d been expecting when he’d finally found the Boss, it sure as fuck hadn’t been this much _laughter._

*

“I am not going to apologize,” Xanxus said, the next morning when Squalo climbed his way up to the ledge again.

Squalo, for his part, gave an exasperated sigh, rolling his eyes.

“VOI, pigs would fly before you apologized for blowing up over justifiable cause, Boss,” he threw back, rolling his eyes some more when Xanxus just glanced away, not quite meeting his eyes.

Sure. And everyone said his Prince was the scariest of the lot.

Not if you understood him, he wasn’t. Actually, he probably was, Squalo wouldn’t follow him if he were a coward. But there was a lot more to Xanxus than the veneer of strength and power he drew around himself. And Squalo had been studying the Prince since he’d first met him and decided that we would become a swordsman worthy of joining the Varia.

“I saw you cooking, before,” Xanxus muttered, after a long moment, and Squalo barked out a laugh.

“Yeah! VOI, that dumb dragon’s never had cooked meat before, his attitude pissed me off enough that I swore I’d make him a good meal. You should have seen the way he gobbled down the lot-” Squalo slowed down when he noticed the strange look being directed at him by the Prince.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Xanxus replied, rolling his eyes. “You just sounded really fucking excited for one, shark-trash.”

“Who, me? Like hell, Boss, I just like good food enough that I needed to school the fucking dragon.” Squalo defended himself, feeling oddly defensive. The feeling only got worse when Xanxus leveled a steady stare his way.

“…if that’s all it is, good. Don’t get fucking attached, shark-trash, it’s just a dragon. One that’s going to be a pain to get around if we want to leave this castle behind, too. Now tell me more about the route to the pantry, and that entryway that Tsuna had to lead you through.”

Squalo ducked his head in a grudging nod, and was nice enough to not point out that the Boss sounded just as regretful about leaving Tsuna behind as Squalo felt.

*

Squalo gave it another few nights before he attempted to sneak out of his room at night, no matter how incensed his insistence to be careful had made Xanxus. He’d been building something of a rapport with the dragon, and he really didn’t want Tsuna deciding that he was a vowbreaker.

He just other vows he needed to be loyal to, damnit. And even if the dragon was interesting company, and funny at times, and looked uncomfortably attractive in his human form, Squalo was loyal to his Boss. The Varia needed Xanxus back. Hell, the _kingdom_ needed Xanxus back. Massimo had gone the way of his other brothers while the Boss had been held captive in the tower, and the Ninth was too fucking old to be having any more kids, at his age. And it didn’t matter that Iemitsu’s lineage could be traced all the way back to the First, the man didn’t have it in him to be a good King.

Tracing his way back to the kitchen and pantry at the base of Xanxus’ tower proved to be easy enough, even in the dark. For all that he’d spent the last three weeks playing companion to a dragon and unable to get his Boss free without angering or disappointing said dragon, he _was_ still Varia quality. Good enough to be the Commander of his Order of Knights, both before and during the Boss’ absence. Locating the magicked entryway in the dark had been child’s play.

Actually finding some way to get it open without leaving visible marks, however, not so much

Squalo scowled at the faintly glowing doorjambs and hinges, wondering if he should simply slice through the hinges and be _done_ with the entire ordeal, when a clawed hand abruptly closed around his right bicep, making him whirl around, startled, left arm already going for his hilt.

Tsuna stared up at him, eyes glowing orange in the dark.

Squalo ceased up, whispering a curse, and didn’t bother fighting when the dragon shoved him up against a wall to the side of the doorway. Tsuna didn’t say anything, though, for all that his lips were pursed tight enough to go white, all he did was stare up into Squalo’s face, eyes demanding some sort of answer.

Squalo stared back, not moving even when the dragon wrapped another hand around his left arm’s elbow, tugging till he let go off his sword hilt. He still had the secret blade hidden in his left forearm, but somehow, he didn’t feel like using it just yet.

Finally, he licked his dry lips, speaking up and ignoring the way Tsuna’s eyes momentarily glanced down to focus on them before darting up again to meet his gaze once more.

“I had to try. He’s my _Boss,”_ he bit out, ducking his head slightly.

Tsuna’s hands tightened on his arms, the claws pressing into the linen clothing them enough that he could feel the prick of their sharp tips against his skin. When the ‘man’ stepped up closer to him, leather and linen rustling audibly in the dark cloaking them, Squalo felt his breath catch in his throat.

“You made a vow to _me.”_ Tsuna murmured, and Squalo nodded faintly, the motion making strands of his long, loose hair slipping forward over his shoulder. He felt sick, in spite of himself.

“I did. But my vow to Xanxus is older, Tsuna. _I had to try.”_

Tsuna sighed, and lifted the hand clenched around his right arm up, gently threading his fingers through Squalo’s hair, much the same way he had before. The action does a lot more to make Squalo’s heart pound, this time around, especially with Tsuna standing so close to him. He’d noticed it before, but Tsuna’s human form is uncomfortably attractive, for all that his hair looks like a pile of hay messily piled atop his head. Squalo could never help but feel attracted to anything that could make his blood race – and apparently a dragon turned human happened to be one of those things.

“You will leave.” Tsuna said, cutting through the silence, voice hard, and Squalo didn’t even try to stop the laugh that bubbled up from within his chest.

“Like hell I will. You’ve got my Boss locked up in a tower, shitty dragon, I’m not going anywhere until I get him out and return to the capital.”

Tsuna’s fingers tightened in his hair, tugging in warning, and Squalo felt a wild grin unfurl across his lips. He leaned in closer himself, until he was eye to eye with the dragon turned human.

“You’ll have to rip me to shreds before I stop trying to get him down, Tsuna. Don’t even fool yourself into thinking I’ll stop in any other way.” He whispered coyly, grin only cutting harder when Tsuna swallowed sharply, eyes going wide, even as his pupils elongated. They glanced down at Squalo’s mouth again, and he _laughed,_ the sound feeling like it was shredding its way up from his throat.

“So what’ll it be, dragon. Take it or leave it.”

 

When Squalo burst through the door leading into Xanxus’ main rooms, sword in hand, his Boss was waiting for him by the window, smirking with about as much glee as he was capable of showing.

“Managed to avoid the brat-dragon, did you. I saw him follow you in – it was easily to see him shift when those eyes of his go orange.”

Squalo shrugged, one corner of his lips tugging up in a half-hearted grin.

“Something like that. You ready to move, Boss? I’ve only got the one horse, but I think something can be done about that.”

Xanxus shot him a suspicious glance, slowing down, but Squalo pointedly turned away to face the door, waiting until got together what effects he wanted to take back with him to the Varia Compound. By the time the Boss had his bags ready, the suspicion had left him with a scowl stretched across his face.

“I’d have heard something if you actually had to fight the dragon. What the fuck happened?” he demanded, incensed, while Squalo led the down the stairs, pushing past doors that were hanging loose or fallen on the ground after Squalo had hacked through the hinges or through the doors themselves.

“Complications, that’s what. It’s not enough of a complication that it’ll stop us from getting back to the capital, but-” Squalo sighed when Xanxus abruptly came to a stop, once they’d finally reached the landing outside the kitchen.

Tsuna was still standing there, having followed Squalo only that far before stopping and gruffly waving an arm forward, willing him onwards.

Xanxus shot him an incredulous look over his shoulder. Squalo shrugged back uncomfortably.

Like he’d said. Complications.

Tsuna, for his part, was slowly straightened up from where he’d been slouched against the wall, arms crossed. For all that he was humongous as a dragon, he was rather diminutive as a human, just about crossing the Boss’ ribs.

“We are at an impasse, Prince.” Tsuna said clearly, stepping forward. Xanxus dropped his pack, and crossed his arms, brows lowering ominously.

“I don’t see how or why, lizard-trash. My knight got till the tower and rescued me. According to how the tales go, you should be letting me leave now.”

Tsuna, surprisingly enough, made a disgusted face at that, his features twisting up.

“For all the tales say,” he snapped, “None of them mention a dragon _choosing_ to protect what has been left in their keeping. My hoard has never been jewels or gold, human. It has always, _always,_ been people, and the friends I’ve made over the years.”

Xanxus made a choking sound, and Squalo quickly glanced away, lifting a hand to his mouth so he wouldn’t be tempted to laugh and interrupt them.

“Squalo has said that he has no choice but to free you from my tower,” Tsuna said, shooting a hard look Squalo’s way. “And I find that, unlike Sir Iemitsu’s men, I don’t quite want to burn your swordsman alive where he stands. He’s been good company, and would like to pursue what we have further.”

This time, it was Squalo who gawked at the dragon, while Xanxus actually managed to sputter with laughter. When Tsuna’s eyes shifted back to him, Squalo found he was locked in place, that odd, burning warmth originating in his chest settling in, making a home for itself.

“Leave the horse free,” Tsuna declared abruptly. “I can carry you both on my back. If my prediction is correct, the King’s men should be returning for a routine check and with supplies come dawn. And even if removing them from the premises would be easy, I would prefer not to soak the grounds of Giotto’s castle with blood and ash.”

“So _that’s_ what you meant when you said something could be arranged,” Xanxus growled at him when they quickly followed after the dragon, who led the way back to the entrance.

Squalo rolled his eyes, and ignored the dark look the Prince was shooting at him.

“I didn’t think he’d actually suggest it himself, Boss. It’s pretty damn weird for me too.”

“You say as if you hadn’t spent the last three weeks seducing dragons instead of focusing on breaking me out of here-”

“ _Boss,”_ Squalo groaned out loud, making Xanxus snort with dark amusement.

*

The expressions on everyone’s faces when they landed on dragonback at the Compound were hilarious, to say the least. They only got worse when they hopped off and the dragon turned into a small, brunet version of the First.

“We,” Xanxus declared, grinning harshly, “have a coup to lead. All in favor?”

“Aye!” roared back all the men in the Compound.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I did writing it. *laughs* I've been wanting to write Tsuna/Squalo for a very long time; it just figures that rarepair week gave me the opportunity to finally tackle the ship.
> 
> If you're seeing hints of possible future 27XS... Well. You wouldn't be wrong.
> 
>  **Kudos and Comments are very welcome!** I'm still in the process of responding to the comments on my Day One entry, but I'd love to hear what you thought of this. Does Squalo's characterization seem believable, keeping in mind the changed setting? How about Tsuna and Xanxus? What did you think about everyone's interaction? Doesn't Tsuna make for an adorable dragon.
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, there's more in this AU coming up during the week - I already have a prequel for it ready to be posted on Rain Day. *grins*
> 
> \---
> 
> For anyone interested, the next new AO3 post from me will be: Day Three's submission for KHR Rare Pair Week.
> 
> You can find me **[@adelmortescryche](https://adelmortescryche.tumblr.com)** \- come by and say hi! I don't bite.


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